Flashback St Patrick's Day Cupcakes!

Flashback St Patrick's Day Cupcakes

You can add green food coloring to anything to make it feel like St Patty's Day, but this cupcake won't just take you to St Patty's Day, it will take you to St Patty's Day circa 1989! Yes that's right.....I've made a time machine cupcake. If you read my blog, you may know that dying food artificial colors isn't really my thing, that doesn't mean you can't dye these cupcakes, however if the crowd is 30 and over, you won't have to dye them. These days you can go to McDonald's in late February and all through March and order a "Shamrock Shake" The truth is what you get is a mint shake, a ghost, a memory of the shake they stopped making in the early 1990's. You see the Shamrock Shake I remember was not a mint shake, no the flavors were far more complex there was a hint of mint, mostly in the after taste.....but really calling the product they now make a "Shamrock Shake" is about as accurate as Van Halen retaining their name after David Lee Roth departed from the band, and like some great alignment of the stars, he's back now too.

So here it is, the Shamrock Shake Cupcake, the way I remember them tasting. This is a HUGE recipe, so feel free to chop it in half. I can't even tell you how many it makes because I made 28 and poured the rest in to a cake pan so I could make cupcakes in a jar. My guess is somewhere around 35

Shamrock Cupcake

22 minutes ~350 oven makes over thirty cupcakes

Large Mixing Bowl ~

2 3/4 cups cake flour (self rising)

1 1/4 cups sugar

3 Tablespoons baking powder

1 Tablespoon High quality cocoa powder (unsweetened)

Measuring Glass ~

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

2 Tablespoons malted milk powder

1/8 Teaspoon peppermint extract

3 Teaspoons vanilla extract

You will also need

10 eggs

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Separate eggs, discarding two of the yokes. You should end up with a bowl of 10 whites and a bowl of 8 yokes. Put whites in the fridge.

Add water, and oil to yokes and set bowl aside (you don't need to mix it yet)

Combine all the dry ingredients in the first section in a large mixing bowl . Whisk together until there are no lumps of cocoa and it's well incorporated.

In a measuring glass whisk together the second section of ingredients. You can use a fork if you don't have a whisk small enough. Try to break up as much of the malted milk as you can, it's okay there will still be lumps.

Add cream mixture to egg yokes, water and oil and mix until well combined. Slowly add this mixture to the dry ingredients in the large mixing bowl until well incorporated. It will end up a thick mix. If you are going to dye these green, I would add the food color now, or just dye the frosting. Set mix aside.

Remove egg whites from the fridge and while mixing on medium start to add the remaining sugar. Once incorporated, add cream of tartar and turn mixer on high until whites are beaten to stiff peaks.

Take some of the egg whites and stir them in to your batter with a spatula. Once the batter has lightened up a bit and is easier to mix, fold in the remaining egg whites until it is all one even color. It will seem a bit soupy when you put it in to your cupcake liners, that's okay.....don't worry.

Fill your liners only half way as this mix rises quite a bit. 

Frosting

4 sticks slightly softened butter

1/2 cup milk

2 teaspoons cocoa powder

2 tablespoons malted milk powder

4 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract

8 cups powdered sugar

Whip butter until smooth in a large mixing bowl. Add 4 cups of the powdered sugar and mix until smooth. Add everything else, except the sugar and mix well. Add remaining sugar and mix until smooth and well combined.

If you are wondering about my frosting recipe and what seems to be copious amounts of sugar compared to my standard butter cream, I'll have you notice this is a doubled recipe to accommodate all those cupcakes. It is my regular butter cream recipe, I actually made half that amount and only frosted about 20 of them.

This is a stiff enough frosting to pipe, I use a 1M tip. Enjoy!!